March Meet Mayhem

Roger Garten drove the War Horse nitro Funny Car to victory in Sacramento, California, in 1975. Fast forward 35 years, almost to the day, and Roger returned to Sacramento in 2010 with co-owner Mike Tocco to debut the War Horse tribute car and won yet again. The team wasn’t so fortunate this year at the famed March Meet at Auto Club Famoso Raceway, near Bakersfield, California. During a qualifying run, tire shake broke the plastic line from the trans to the air shifter, causing a downshift into Low gear. Carnage ensued. As you can see, the resulting over-rev led to a backfire that suddenly gave Roger a panoramic view of the grandstands. After jettisoning the body, Roger kept the car in his lane and pulled the chutes. “I knew there was a guy next to me, but I didn’t know where,” he says. Roger was fine, but the rods in the Brad Anderson block are scrap and so are the blower and the rearend housing.

Mike and Roger have ordered another body and already have a buyer interested in using the wrecked body to build a new Nostalgia Funny Car, but they are also considering keeping it as a spare. When the new body arrives, it will be finished in as close to the previous paint scheme as possible. The goal is to have the car up and running for the 42nd Annual Ignitor Opener event in Boise on May 4–6.

The photos here were captured by Dan Kaplan, brother of Barry Kaplan, who was a Jr. Fuel racer before becoming better known as a land-speed nitro tuner whose Kaplan-Carr Lakester was the first to run 300 mph at El Mirage Dry Lake. He was also a friend of HOT ROD’s Gray Baskerville.

More March Meet Mayhem

Also during March Meet qualifications, veteran driver Denver Schutz was able to keep his nostalgia fuel dragster right side up after the tricky left lane struck again. Schutz crossed the centerline, picking off a couple of timing cones along the way, and pinned one timing cone to the front of his car for the rest of the ride back into the left lane. After slapping the wall, Schutz was given a check by the medical crew on site and then at the Kern County Medical Center before being released. —

And the Winners

The violent photos always get all the exposure, but what about the guys who put in the megabucks and super effort that it takes to win a race? Seen here is Jim Young, winner in Nostalgia Top Fuel, and Tim Boychuk, who won Nostalgia Funny Car but—as we learned at presstime—was disqualified after the final. A post-race tech inspection found his car’s fuel pump “exceeded the maximum allowance for fuel delivery,” according to the NHRA. Second-place Nostalgia Top Fuel finisher Rick White was also DQ’ed for a similar fuel pump violation.